


still safe in your arms (?)

by runningoutoffanfics



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, My First Work in This Fandom, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Worried Eddie Diaz
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23395549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningoutoffanfics/pseuds/runningoutoffanfics
Summary: Evan Buckley hates big calls like this. Especially when his team basically abandones him. And more especially when he has to go in alone. And even more when he gets crushed by something. Again.NOT FINISHED. SLOW UPDATES.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Bobby Nash, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Firehouse 118 Crew, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 233





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: timeline is nonexistent. 
> 
> Hey guys, so this is kinda my first fanfic since idk, 2015? So idk if my writing is still something people wanna read. Also my first ff on ao3 (yeah, I used to be a wattpad girl).  
> And also it's my first fic in the 911 fandom, and I've only watched the first two seasons bc it's not available in my country yet, so idk what's how accurate and what's canon and what not
> 
> :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I have no idea of how the American firefighter system works, so everything written here is based of my own experience as an Austrian voluntary firefighter. Also, I changed some things to make them fit in better with the story.
> 
> Also English is not my mother tongue so sorry for any mistakes :/

Oh god. Buck fucking hated it when they had big calls like this - instead of dealing with the fire in their own little team, they were often forced to split up. Especially in such a big area they often wouldn't see each other until the were getting ready to depart back to their own station, which could them take hours, considering the size of the fire.

It's not that Buck didn't like dealing with fires. It was an essential part of being a firefighter, but even though he himself had had a few accidents, he just preferred them to the chaos that every fire bigger than a dumpsters brought wit it. Fires were simply unpredictable.

It had only been a few weeks since he had been allowed to go back to duty, and this was their first big fire yet. They had a lot of smaller accidents, and thankfully their survival rate the last few weeks had been through the roofs. Still, the whole team wasn't too happy about the situation, because they knew it was just the calm before the storm. Something big always seemed to happen after a period of calm, and it would likely involve a lot of deaths. It always went this way - the LAFD could seemingly never catch a break.

So this was Bucks first actually dangerous call in weeks, and it definitely wasn't going like he would prefer it too. As soon as they had arrived, Hen and Chimney were ushered off to help the wounded, as they were one oft the first ambulances to arrive. This left Buck with Eddie and Bobby--and he wasn't exactly glad about it.  
Of course he didn't expect everything to go back to the way it was before the lawsuit, but he definitely hadn't expected everything to go like this.

When he had walked up to the station for the first time in what seemed like years, he of course didn't except as big as a party as every other returning firefighter had - especially since he had just filed a lawsuit against them not too long ago. But what Buck certainly didn't expect to walk into was *nothing*. Yeah, he didn't expected them to put up posters or have a cake, but the absence of even a "Welcome back, Buck" was hurting him in places he didn't even know could hurt. 

He had been tense for his entire first day, just waiting for someone to comment on his return. By the time Bobby served dinner, he had given up all hope. Staggering up to the dinner table, he smelled the unbelievably rich smell of Bobby's infamous curry, something he hadn't tasted in weeks. Well, he actually hadn't had anything homemade in weeks, as he never had enough motivation to make himself anything more than a sandwich.  
Seeing as no one else was around yet, he decided to just hang around in the general area of the kitchen, to maybe even help his team slowly get used to the idea of him being back again. So not remembering that they were five people again certainly wasn't a reason for Eddie setting up only four sets of plates. But he still did-ignoring that Buck was watching him the whole time. So when the rest of the team slowly started coming in and sitting down, he didn't just grab another plate and squeezed in between two of his teammates, but left instead.  
The team had made it clear that they didn't him to be part of their little firefighter family--yes, they let him on calls, but he wasn't allowed to eat with them.

Hen and Chimney weren't the big problem in this equation:they treated Buck like they always did, just maybe a little bit colder and less caring. But he couldn't decide whose behaviour hurt less, Bobby's or Eddie's. Bobby, who had been some sort of father figure to him since the day he joined the department as a rookie, had decided to go back to treating him like he treated Buck 1.0. There were not a lot of things he could have done to hurt him more: back then he at least understood what he had done wrong, but now he couldn't see any mistakes on his side except for the lawsuit.  
He was being reprimanded for everything he did, it seemed like he couldn't even breathe without being told off (this actually had happened: they had been training with their SCBAs and Bobby told him off for breathing in too quickly- he was just trying to breathe his leg pain away, but what did it matter?).

And then there was Eddie. Eddie was basically his entire world, in the end, everything revolved around him. Eddie used to be his support sysem, was sometimes the only reason he woke up in the morning, and all that even though, or especially because, Buck was desperately in love with him. Not that Eddie knew- Buck was careful to not let his feelings show.  
But that didn't make it hurt any less when Eddie stopped talking to him when they were coming back from a call, or when Eddie stopped (or never began again) inviting him over. He seemed to purposefully go away every time Buck stepped closer than a meter away from him, and immediately steered away everytime Buck started a conversation. Sometimes, he acted like he didn't exist, but that was still better than the times Buck catched him looking at him with such a look of despise, or when he made weird comments about Buck that some would have called insulting.  
Of course that had taken a toll on their relationship, but also Eddie took any chance of seeing Chris again away. Of course Buck understood that he didn't have any right to see the kid, but it still hurt to not be able to see his favorite superman.

So when Bobby told them to stay there while he went to the firefighter in charge, he didn't know whether he should be relieved to only have to deal with two people that openly despised him or if he should be scared of being alone with Eddie. "What a disaster, huh?" Buck made an attempt to start a conversation, and couldn't hold back the light tremor in his voice. Eddie didn't reply, so they just waited for Bobby in silence.

"Diaz, you're going in. Report to the SCBA assembly point immediately. If you need anything, I'll be helping out the departement in charge. Buckley, you're going to report to the 136th until this is over. We don't have any need for you here right now." Buck watched Eddie and Bobby March off in two different directions, and started looking for the 136ths captain. On the one hand he was glad he didn't have to go in - his leg still gave him trouble sometimes and thus the SCBA wasn't his favorite thing right now. And again, he wasn't too fond of all the chaos, so hopefully dealing with things behind the scenes with the 136th would help him steer clear of most of his problems.

As soon as he found the captain of the 136th, she started looking at him like some kind of alien. "What the hell are you doing here? We don't need anyone else here, they need everyone who can to go in. Go!" Welp. It seemed like he wasn't going to come of easy on this one, it seemed.  
The team at the SCBA point was obviously overstressed, and told him to just grab some gear and go in. And he did. Oh god, he did.

At this point he had forgotten what a thrill it was to go near a fire: the heat and intensity unmatched to anything else. But it also gave himsome sort of sudden surge of power: fighting against a such incredible force was something not a lot fo people could relate to.  
As he went in, he wondered where all the others where: he clearly went in through the main entrance, just like everyone else. But where did they go, and where was he needed? He decided to go to the left. There the fire was still mildly contained, and he didn't need to worry about any flashovers. He still couldn't find any of the others, but fire was fire and needed to be stopped.

After a while, he noticed that in all the chaos he didn't check if he had all the necessary equipment on him before going in. And yeah, two things were definitely absent: a radio and the dead man's switch. Both could be extremely dangerous, he knew that, but as long as he got back out or met with others it wouldn't be to big of a problem. Having his little section extinguished, he decided to move on up - it would make sense for the others to be further up if the lower stories were stable. Of course he would have been happy to find anyone, but he still couldn't help but hope to find Eddie. Yes, Eddie was treating him like he either didn't exist or like he killed baby animals, but he still felt some sort of safety when being around him.  
And feeling secure was always something you could only hope for when surrounded by fire.  
He started to go up the stairs, when he suddenly heard something crack. Buck only managed to curse as suddenly everything came crashing down.  
And then there was only silence and darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so so much for all your comments and kudos! I haven't felt this motivated to write something in years, so here's another chapter. I hope you like it!
> 
> :)

It had been hours since they had first arrived at the scene, and when their crew was ready to deport, the sun already began to go down.  
Eddie hadn't even realised that it had been such a long time- he had spent some time trying to stop the fire from inside the building, until there were warned by their captains to come outside immediately, as one part of the building had seemingly collapsed.

Thank god no one had been hurt - they had known that this part of the building was poorly built and thus hadn't tried to save this part, but only stopped the fire from spreading to the areas that could still be saved. Thus no one had been sent in to try and extinguish the fire from that side, it would have been a suicide mission.

So they had taken to put out the fire from the outside, which would result in more damage and would take more time, but it seemed to be the only way to not endanger any firefighters.  
After five hours of hard work, Bobby finally told Eddie to go and tell Hen and Chimney they were going home - paramedics were going to handle the situation from now on.

Happy to finally catch a break, he went to go get his colleagues, which were just as relieved as Eddie about finally going home. "I'm so damn exhausted, you wouldn't even be able to believe it. I can't imagine how Buck is feeling right now, his leg still hadn't fully recovered the last time I talked with Maddie about it."

Fuck. Buck. How could Eddie forget about him?  
If he remembered correctly, Bobby told him to go to another station - which was very weird. You just don't tell somebody from your team to basically go and fuck off because you didn't want to be responsible for him. But then again, wasn't that what Eddie had done the last few weeks? Even worse, he ignored him and treated him like he wouldn't want his worst enemy to be treated by the people he loved.

He knew that Buck had a thing for him. He had known for a long time, but he also knew that he could never tell Buck that he felt the same for him.  
Even if he got away from his unhealthy coping mechanisms, from street fighting, from endangering his loved ones this time, he couldn't guarantee to be able to do it again.  
He already had Chris who he couldn't protect from himself, but he could damn well protect Buck from the mess that Eddie was.  
And if it was by hurting him, than so be it. Everything was better than disappointing another person he loved.

He had tried to still look out for Buck on calls, but it was hard when he had to keep his distance. And on a call like this, where chaos was the only thing staying constant, it was damn near impossible. Especially when Bobby separated them. Of course he was glad that Buck didn't have to go in, because god, that idiot had a real talent to get hurt in dilemmas like this, but he would have still liked to keep an eye on him.  
So why didn't he do that once he wasn't in with the SCBA team anymore?  
He would slap himself if he could.

Well, at least he now had an excuse to go and check up on Buck. Hen and Bobby had started discussing the call as soon as they had arrived at their truck, and Chim was texting Maddie,who was considerably worried about her boyfriend.  
"Bobby, which station did you sent Buck to again?" he asked. Bobby shrugged. "I'm not quite sure, I think it was the 136th. Tell him to hurry up, I'm not waiting any longer for his lazy ass, he should have been here minutes ago." Eddie nodded. He didn't quite know for sure why Bobby was suddenly so mean towards Buck. Unlike Eddie he didn't seem to have any reason to hurt him this much, everyone on the team could see that he was visibly suffering.  
If Eddie didn't have to keep his distance to Buck, physically as well as emotionally, he would have done something against it for sure.  
But there wasn't any reason for him get involved, was there?  
And, of course, he was sure that Buck would recover soon - he had already suffered so much that he was going to survive this too.

When he finally found the 136th, they were nearly already gone, he could only stop their truck last minute. "Hey, were you just going to leave Buckley standing alone?" Their captain looked confused. "Leave someone? Hell no, my whole team is in my truck. I don't know who you're talking about." Eddie was sure he looked just as confused as she did. "Evan Buckley? From the 118th?" She seemed to suddenly remember something. "Oh, Bobby Nash's team, right?" Eddie nodded. "Well I sent him to the SCBA station and he went in. He was worthless here, so I sent him where he was needed. So he didn't report back to you?" Eddie shook his head. Bobby was sure that Buck was still with this team. "Well, as soon as he left to go in, he stopped being my responsibility. I'm sorry, but you have to look elsewhere for him. Maybe he got lost in all this chaos, it wouldn't be unlikely, would it?" She shut her window and Eddie could only watch as the people he and Bobby trusted Buck with were driving away. And he had no idea where Buck was.  
He slowly started to raise his radio.  
"Here Diaz for Captain Nash. We have a problem. We need to find Buck. Fast. Over."

_____________________________________________________________________

Bobby had already spoken with every captain, and they were really starting to go out of ideas to where Buck could be. They knew that Buck went in, but they had no idea to where he could be. He had to be with the team he went in with, but no one remembered someone from the 118th besides Eddie joining them. "We all have been looking for him for half an hour, maybe we should just go back to the truck and wait for him. I mean, he has to be somewhere around here."Hen was right, in a few minutes their truck would be the only one still standing around. The last firefighters were just cleaning up the SCBA meeting point, as Eddie overheard something weird.

"Hey guys, looks like we have a spare dead man's switch. Wonder why we would brought that along." Immediately dread started to flow trough Eddie's veins. It was simply not possible to just have a spare of something. That wasn't how things worked, which meant that they didn't have one switch too much, but rather that they were missing a SCBA set. Of course there was a possibility that a team brought it with them on accident, but it could also mean that - "Someone went in without a dead man's switch. Fuck." Bobby cursed. It took Hen and Chim only a few more moments to grasp why Eddie and their Captain were running towards the site like there were lives at stake - because there were.

If Buck went in alone, without a dead man's switch, there was no possible way of others knowing that one of their own was injured and still in the building. Radios had been a rarity, so of course Buck wouldn't have been able to tell anyone his position.  
Slowly Eddie started to understand what that meant.  
Had he been in the more secure part of building, he would have gotten out with everyone else, he wouldn't have stayed in. Sure, Buck was reckless sometimes, but there was no reason for him to do that, es pecially because there were no lives at stake.  
Buck wouldn't risk his life for less property damage, Eddie knew that (they had several discussions about Eddie doing exactly that and Buck simply not seeing a point in it - which was kind of true, he had to admit).

So that meant Buck had been in the collapsed part of the building. And he didn't get out. Which meant that Buck was hurt again, most likely badly. And what was the last thing Eddie told him? He didn't even remember when he had last spoken to him.  
Buck had made various efforts to start a conversation, the last one today when they arrived at the scene.  
While they searched the burned down and collapsed rooms, Eddie couldn't help but think about how he basically abandoned Buck today. He knew that Buck despised the chaos a fire as big as this one brought with it, the unpredictability. He knew Buck felt anxious in calls like this, and that he needed his team, mostly Eddie, by his side to be able to remain calm and properly do his job. It was just natural to feel this way, and it showed Bucks trust in Eddie that he was able to calm him down when they were running towards something everyone else ran away from. And he broke that trust. Multiple times.  
He didn't even want to imagine how Buck felt when walked into the uildimg, and this possibly being his last feeling was something Eddie didn't even want to think about.

He kept calling for his best friend (and was it even right to call Buck only that when he was just so much more? It felt like treason. Like he's breaking Buck's trust simply by thinking it. Again.) over and again. "Buck! Buck, please! Please please please be alive, please be here!" He wanted to just break down and cry. What was he supposed to do? He couldn't lose another person he loved, he couldn't do that to himself, couldn't do that to Chris.  
As his eyes slowly started to fill with tears, he picked up on a weird noise. He concentrated. Nothing happened. He concentrated harder. And there it was again. A noise like someone was trying to lift something - "Eddie?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading :)  
> Do you think I should maybe hold back a little with all the technical details of firefighting (example the dead man's switch and scba meeting points etc)?

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I have no idea of how the American firefighter system works, so everything written here is based of my own experience as an Austrian voluntary firefighter. Also, I changed some things to make them fit in better with the story.
> 
> Also, English isn't my mother tongue so I'm sorry for any mistakes :/
> 
> I would love to get some feedback from you, as it has been literal years since I've written anything.


End file.
